Linux Mint 18.3 “Sylvia” KDE – BETA Release

Linux Mint 18.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2021. It comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.

This is a really bad translation 🙂 We got your feedback on l2tp during the Cinnamon BETA and this was considered outside of our scope. Though, out of curiosity, which package(s) in particular are you talking about?

It shows from his own Russian text that Igor wishes to get the Mint Cinnamon iso but with the vpn l2tp package already preinstalled, as a Christmas gift. And even in his Russian text, there are so many misspellings, mistakes, and no any punctuation that the automatic translator is not able to get it right, as well as Santa, sorry… 🙂

That is why I left Mint (which I loved to use for more than 5 years). Now I’m running SolydK, based on Debian stable, which runs very stable Plasma 5.8.6. I have tried KDE Neon with a newer Plasma version (5.8.8) which was not stable yet. One out of five times it refused to start after loggin in.
Mint is great if you like Cinnamon (although unstable for me in Mint 18.2) or Xfce or Mate (stable but old fashioned) but for KDE you better start looking for something else now.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Mint drops KDE but it makes me a bit sad.

internet cable VPN L2tp. In the live image there is no network manager l2tp-could you add it to live image. With insecure re-producers to install a nepod, and I can not connect to the Internet in L2TP. Can eat where the image in which works in L2tp. In KDE only the shell of the program is not present. Many providers use VPN L2TP

I think it’s unfortunate that what we’ve seen in the last several years is a loss of focus on the part of DE (UI) designers as to the importance of the DE, relative to distributions themselves. (A ‘new’–different–UI/DE will not turn a flagging distribution around; but a poor UI/DE will certainly hobble and cripple a good distribution)
The designers of DEs need to understand that their contribution is NOT the major portion of the distribution.
A LOT of users need to understand this primary, major concept also.

I’m waiting stable edition.
The Backup Tool is compatible with similar tool from Linux Mint Maya? I wish to get data from Home directory.
RAM usage is 500MB, but something is using CPU little more than Linux Mint KDE 18.2 (maybe plasmashell process).
I still hope you will not abandon KDE edition.
Best Regards to Linux Mint Team.

I have problems with linux mint on the asus x99-a with i7-5820k cpu@3.30 Ghz Nvideo geforce gtx970
an old version worked !
It would be nice to know if it is compatible ?
the system crashes on Linux Mint 18.3 , by install

3 dec 2017 22hour local NL
In LM18.3 I got a problem with the terminal using ”su’. It wont accept my password.
I can login as usual.
Using GParted accepts the password as usual.
Do I do something wrong?

hello linux mint team. I am very happy with the beta output of KDE 18.3 since I have not seen any errors I think you did a very good job. I congratulate you for bringing us such a versatile and functional operating system. ENGLISH

So I’m not a programmer or anything. I just think Linux is a cool OS and also I want to learn to program. Anyways, I have never had a problem installing Linux Mint (Older versions) on my laptops. However, this time I was trying to install Linux beside Windows and I got an error after booting and getting into the GRUB. My specs are the following:
Asrock Z170 extreme4 Motherboard
Intel core i5 6600k Processor
16gb DDR4 2400Mhz Ram
Intel NVMe 256 SSD with two more hardrives totalling 3tb and 256 ssd with windows 10 pro.
Nvidia GTX 1080Ti Graphics Card
Thermaltake 750W Bronze Power Supply
Hyper 212 Evo cooler (lol).
The error I get is the following:
[0.017282] ACPI Error [\_sb_pcio.xhc_.rhub.hs11] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20160930/dswload-210)
[0.017288] ACPI Exception: AE_NOT_FOUND, During name lookup/catalog (20160930/psobject-227)
[0.017316] ACPI Exception: AE_NOT_FOUND, (SSDT:xh_rvp08) while loading table (20160930/tbxfload-228)
[0.023007] ACPI Error: 1 table load failure, 5 successful (20160930/tbxfload-246)

What I did:
I made my usb flashdrive bootable with the program Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.7.9.exe. I formatted the 16Gb flashdrive before making it bootable, and I also selected the option to format the flashdrive before making my bootable flashdrive. Then I proceeded to restart Windows. I then pressed the button that took me to the BIOS. I then selected the boot option to be the one that had UEFI: Name of Flashdrive as the priority. I then saved the changes and exited. After it restarted, it took me to the GRUB. Here I chose the first option. After that it showed me the error I have typed above. I have chosen the other options as well. However, they all show the same thing except the for when I run in compatibility mode, which is another error Its a screen long so I can’t type all of it. I took a picture, if you need it I can send it to you. But the last line that I saw was [3958455] fb: switching to nouveaufb from EFI VGA… and nothing happens. So I am forced to press the restart button on my tower with both errors.

It became impossible to boot into some linuxes on some laptops in the beginning of 2017. On my asus ul50v since then, I’ve had to install the previous linuxes (kernels before 4.10), install the necessary drivers – some of nvidia, bumblebee, primus, microcode. And only after then, consequently upgrade to the latest builds with newer kernels. For example, the latest Parted Magic USB stick I can boot normally is 2017-01-08, Fedora – 25, Mint – I don’t remember which one 🙂
BTW, the ACPI errors look not to be fatal. I always have all four of them on all my machines when a newer linux kernel is booted, it’s ‘OK’ 🙂 The fatal is the incompatibility of newer kernels and some hardware plus the absence of some drivers in the iso.
But the problem can be resolved sometimes, with a great amount of hacking efforts in installing and testing the needed drivers, and then upgrading from the previous builds booted properly. The clones of the hard drives are necessary for restoring OS every time. Because it may take many attempts to achieve though some of a result, sorry… 🙁

You’ll continue to receive package updates on the base until 2021 (not new features, but bug and security fixes). You’ll also receive updates on Plasma/KDE from Kubuntu via their Backports PPA which is used by default in this edition.

I agree with the users that “It just WORKS”. Been using Mint since version 5 or so. Currently using 17.3 on 4 computers. I have always just saved my Home folder (or its contents), installed the new OS, and transferred all the old info. Any problem (or disadvantage) with that. Thanks

I’ve always done that too. Some config files might not be right from one version to the next, so a few things might not work as expected (though I’ve never had any issues). If you don’t repartition your drive (just reuse the same partition layout) and don’t reformat your /usr partition, you don’t even have to save and restore your home folder (DO back it up to an external HD just in case though!).

I had installed Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon Sylvia yesterday ( 6 Dec 2017) ( first Linux on my own PC) and had to hard boot my PC thrice since.
1) On clicking Suspend, it slept but I couldn’t wake it again.
2) While using Stellarium, on clicking settings, the PC went to lock screen and no key (even ctrl+alt+del) would change that. Even time didn’t update.
3) Today When my screen prompted low battery, as soon as I switched power on, the screen went black and I had to hard boot when no key or key combination was working..

Provided that I have Windows (and important files) on my laptop too , I want a stable version of Linux on my PC. Should I switch to an older version of Mint?
Also, if possible, please explain the cause of these problems, as I am expecting to contribute to open source.

Everything is working perfectly on a Dell Inspiron laptop from 2011. This KDE environment is great, looks cool and functions well. I am very impressed and I like it much more than Cinnamon, which i used for the last few years. No issues yet.

You can change the 2G to 3G or 4G what swap file size you prefer. If you don’t hibernate you can keep swap file size 2G or 3G as its almost never used.

As swap partition is almost never used unless you use hibernate, swap file is better option otherwise you will be just wasting hard drive space of around size little more than your Ram or perhaps double the size or your Ram.

Maybe Mint team should ask users whether to use swap file or swap partition during install, swap file being a default option so those who want to use hibernate can opt for swap partition. 🙂

Mint KDE 17.3 has been so stable and suitable for my needs that I never upgraded to 18. Well, now that you’ve had such a long time to really polish this new line, I’ll probably take this final upgrade, knowing I’ll be good till 2021. Then, I’ll have a hard choice to make, sure wish you’d keep the KDE edition, it’s probably the best one there is!

Please tell me this newer version is going to support Microsoft Office 2016 and later and even more exe. files because what I’m using currently (mint 18) does not support Microsoft office (ie I can’t install it even with “wine”. why?)

Stay on Microsloth Windows if you want to use MS Office and .exe files. Don’t introduce crappy MS software on superior Linux systems. It ruins a well designed system. Libre Office is fine for most of us. And for most other applications a Linux alternative is available.
Or just make a dual boot system if you can’t leave Microsoft yet. I have dropped MS completely five years ago and never missed it…

Eric, Wilo is right. And the best way to install Win is a Virtual Machine. VirtualBox is amazingly easy to use for getting full Win10 run natural way in linux. And it looks like the best way for using most of win software, IMHO. I’ve installed and tested office 2016, And the packages I’ve tested – Ps, and the most famous computer added design app, for example, – all are running seamlessly in the separate desktop window (full screen or not) of the guest Win OS. It’s if to test Win 10 enterprise. Pro ruins everything for me 🙂
But I still can’t assign to my Skype account though. So I have to use web Skype on the host linux system,

Thanks guys….thatcat7 I’ve downloaded the codeweavers but it’s rather unfortunate that I would have to use the trial version but I really appreciate you help. Well, I think the developers have to improve on the Libreoffices interface cus it looks pretty old and not catchy.

I’ve got Microsoft Office 2013 but I still can’t install it with wine. Ah!!! what the hell is wrong with my OS or the wine is not configured properly yet. The last time I checked the wine pubbed up a message telling me to download/install .Net the first time I lunched “wine” but I skipped it. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason. Guys is there any way out to install the .Net

This will be the best KDE Plasma LTS distro ever.
I hope you will change your mind and release a Linux Mint 19 KDE with the new Plasma 5.12LTS, the KDE users community really needs such a user friendly, stable and polished distro.

But try to install software via the software manager if possible because only in that way you will receive automatic updates via Mint update! So use .deb files only if there is no other option and be sure they are from a reliable source.

I do not think it as a goodbye, but until we meet again. Thanks for all the HARD work that the team did and it has been an honor to have known you guys and gals. Mint is a truly wonderful distro. I feel that it fulfilled what Linus himself wanted. A distro that can be technical for the tech people and easy for the non-tech people, treating all equally. As the Hawaiians say; “Aloha oi”